How it feels to sell a painting

I can still recall the joy and excitement of selling my first painting - I had been painting for some years, mainly focusing on friends' dogs, cats or children and had always given away the results, but then I started attending art classes and had fallen in love with portraits and had particularly enjoyed working with a young Indian model who sat for us wearing a lovely pale peach sari which really complemented her skin tones. Her husband came to collect her and was transfixed by my painting and begged to buy it - he was insistent that money should exchange hands to make it a professional purchase. I went home in a daze but so excited that someone should like my work enough to pay for it ... and then much to my sadness I realised that I didn't have a photo of the work!

Since then I have sold many paintings, in many different media, but the buzz still feels the same! It's not just about the money ... for me it really is about many hours of experimentation, research, failures and random moments of joy. This image sums it up well!